monty57

I agree with KeithStone53151. Ideally, we'll keep our farm stocked so we can have replacements ready when our vets have around 1-2 years of control remaining. That would allow us to get good return on the vet while having a good young replacement at the ready. With that in mind, I look at two year extensions as a way we can keep a player for 6-7 years rather than 4-5, while still getting a good return in trade. That should normally give us most of the player's best years, and someone else can pay him for his decline years. Obviously this won't be the case in every instance, but nothing's perfect. The financial risk of a contract like this one to Anderson, the initial Braun deal, or deals like Lucroy's are so much less than the risk of signing a 30-something FA to a market-value, multi-year deal that it's a strategy smaller revenue teams have to utilize. During his time as a Brewer he will be paid less per year than he would if the contract wasn't signed, allowing the Brewers to have additional funds to spend. If he is performing reasonably well and is signed to a reasonable contract, he will be able to be traded when his team control wanes. The downside risk is if he gets injured or underperforms, and that risk is much less on these type of contracts than a free agent contract signed to an aging vet.

In 2017, there were 27 MLB position players with a WAR of 2 or higher who are 32 or over. 14 had a WAR of 3 or more. There were 126 players 31 and under who had a WAR of 2 or higher, with 76 posting a WAR of 3 or higher. I know people like to question WAR, but I'm just using it to show that it gets risky when players get past their prime. Some guys can still perform at a reasonable level, and a select few (like Votto this year) even put up great seasons in their 30's. It's just risky to count on it, as most players fade out after they hit 31 or 32 years old. Professional sports are a young man's game. Meanwhile, players in their 30's make a lot of money as they are generally out of their pre-arby/arby years and into free agency. When we have a guy through his prime, I'd generally prefer to go year-to-year and probably trade them when they have 1-2 years of team control remaining. Let someone else take the risk of paying them big money for the years past their prime, while we can cash in by trading them at their peak (still relatively cheap and producing in their prime).

Knebel is entering year 1 (of 4) arby. He will be 26 in November, so a two-year extension would be for his year 30 and 31 seasons. Sounds like a good idea. Jimmy Nelson is entering his year 1 (of 3) arby years. He will be injured much of next year, no one knows how he will pitch when he comes back, and will be in his year 32 season in his first FA year. Unless I could get him extremely cheap due to the injury, I'd pass. Zach Davies turns 25 in February and is in his final pre-arby year, with three arby years. He will be 29 in his first year of free agency, so I'd be fine with offering him an extension, although I think he has Boras as his agent (Cots doesn't say) and if that's the case an extension would seem unlikely. Shaw is also in his final pre-arby year with three arby years, but he will be 28 in April. That means he will be 32 in his first year of free agency, so I'd be hesitant on offering an extension. Next year is Santana's first pre-arby year, and is his age 25 season. He'll therefore be 29 in his first year of free agency, so an extension makes sense. The big question here is what the Brewers' plans are for OF in the future, although a good contract should make Santana very tradeable if the Brewers eventually replace him with a prospect. Orlando Arcia is entering his second pre-arby year, which will be his age 23 season. I would consider a long-term deal like Braun's first deal with Arcia, who will be only 28 in his first free agent year. All of these would of course be contingent on the player signing a deal that includes buying out a year or two of free agent seasons, while giving a discount to the team in return for the risk the team is assuming by signing a long-term guaranteed contract.

Unless someone's cheating, stats in cards are perfect. The number of cards will always be the same, and the cards will always be treated the same (a three is always a three, and an ace is always an ace). Stats in baseball will never be perfect because humans are performing the acts, and the same humans doing the same acts can have multiple possible outcomes. That said, the infusion of statistical analysis into baseball has been positive, and anyone in management who ignores this should not be in baseball for long. As to media, in general they don't matter as they don't effect the game. If the fans like hearing someone with a certain viewpoint, he will keep his job. If they don't, he will eventually be replaced by someone more appealing to the fans. It may take longer than you think it should, but it will happen. Look at how many more announcers today have some understanding of statistical analysis than they did a decade ago. Even more "old school" guys like Bill are making an effort in that direction.

I would think Broxton would have the most value to a team who is not expected to compete, who could see if he can put it all together as a full-time starter. We could probably get a higher-priced reliever who could help us out now, while saving the rebuilding team some money. Or, Stearns could pull another "Lind trade," where he gets multiple guys in the early minors, hoping to get another Freddy Peralta. We aren't going to get a high-ranked prospects or solve our starting pitching questions, but we could get some value back from Broxton. I like that Stearns realizes that value is good at all levels, not just the MLB level. We have better, younger guys now, so we are in a position to trade Broxton. As I mentioned earlier, it's not the end of the world if he isn't traded... it just means that Stearns feels Broxton brings more value to the 2018 Brewers than he could bring back in trade. It would also probably mean that Brinson would start 2018 in AAA.

I think the Brewers re-signed Sogard because they realize that they have too many high-K, "all or nothing" guys. That can lead to the offense going flat for extended periods when too many of those guys are set at "nothing" as they were during parts of the second half of 2017. They need a few guys who can make contact and get on base so the sluggers can knock them in. I think they'll find a 2B who can lead off and get on base, while Sogard gets a lot of PAs as a utility IF. That means one of Perez and Villar will be traded. Perez has value on the trade market, while Villar does not, so Perez is the likely guy to go, while Villar will be a utility guy fighting for playing time. Perez could spur interest from a number of teams, as versatility is becoming important around the league. The Brewers need pitching, so hopefully he can be part of a deal that brings back either a starter or a reliever.

Look at extensions like insurance. It's a transference of risk from one party to another, and that transference has a cost. Without a contract, the player has all the risk associated with injury and under-performance. By signing the contract, the team takes on that risk. The player "pays" for this risk transference by giving the team a discount to what he projects to make if he goes year-to-year without injury or under-performance. The longer the "insurance period," the greater the discount, which is why I normally don't like offering extensions to players who are already into their arby years - the team generally accepts risk without getting much of a discount. The option years make this deal work, because the team is only assuming partial risk for a player who just had a career year and could regress.

The biggest "stat" I care about is age. He's not old now, but will probably get a 4-5 year deal, putting him into the territory that most MLB pitchers can't pitch anymore. Darvish and Arrieta are two years older than Lynn, so I'd run farther and faster away from them... especially at the price tag they'll demand. I'm so convinced those contracts will end badly that I'm hoping the Cubs will sign one or both of them. Per JosephC's post, I would love to sign Lynn to a two-year deal with two option years (team or mutual, not player options). We get his relatively safe age 31 and 32 seasons, and can get rid of him if he starts to fade into his 30's. We have money to spend and are going to increase payroll this year, so I wouldn't even hate a three-year deal for Lynn although that's as far as I'd go. I just get really scared with any player, regardless of the player and regardless of what poster suggested it, when they get multi-year deals into their mid-30's. Very few players continue playing at a high level (or even an average level) when they're in their mid-30's. As Bill Hall Star said, it is tough to find decent free agents under the age of 30. That's why most of our long-termers should come from our farm. I have no problem signing them to extensions and filling in the holes with short-term deals to 30-something role players, potentially saving some money for when we do find that 28-year old FA who makes sense to sign to a 4-5 year deal. Theoretically, I'd love it if all of our players could be "value" guys (pre-arby, arby, and early extensions). That will probably never be the case, but we should try to get as many as possible. We should generally try to avoid anything that looks like we will have year(s) where we are overpaying for production. You can't remain competitive when you have guys you are overpaying and your competitors can spend twice as much as you.

Really depends on what you're looking for and how you project each player. Schwarber could reach the line you stated, and Broxton could hit .250/.340 with 30 HR and 30 SB while playing good defense at all three OF positions allowing a team to rotate their OF/DH to keep everyone fresh. Or, either one could end with a career average around .200. If Schwarber only hits around .200 then he's basically a Chris Carter type, and we saw how much value teams give those players these days. If Broxton only hits around .200, then at least he can add some value on defense and the basepaths. I think that either of these players will have to prove themselves some more before anyone will give up good value for them. Schwarber may get a little more right now because he was higher rated as a prospect and hit a World Series HR that people remember, but I don't think he has nearly the value he had two years ago. Plus, his market is limited to the AL, because he is horrible on defense. But all it takes is one GM who loves the potential and either of these guys could bring back more than I expect.

Lynn is getting to the end of his prime, when biology generally says he'll start to fade. Like Briggs said, if the market dries up and we get him for a shorter-term deal, then fine. I would be scared to sign him to a deal that takes him into his mid-30's. I'd prefer any FA signings to be to someone who is entering his prime. Chatwood is an example for this year. He turns 28 in December, would probably be relatively inexpensive after a bit of a down year, and I'd bet his 22% HR rate doesn't sustain when he gets out of Colorado.

I agree that Schwarber will be shopped, but I think his value is significantly less than Broxton. He might bring back a MLB pitcher on a bad contract, or some lower level minor leaguers, but he's not bringing back someone like Gray. If his value is higher than I think, then Stearns is going to have a heyday trading Aguilar and Broxton.

I had concerns about whether we should offer Anderson a multi-year contract, but this deal is a no-brainer. Congrats to Anderson for guaranteeing he's going to make a lot of money, and as a Brewer fan I'm happy to have him locked up to a team-friendly deal.

From MLBtraderumors: Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein recently spoke about the team’s 2018 rotation and acknowledged a need, writes CSN Chicago’s Patrick Mooney. Epstein characterized left-hander Mike Montgomery as someone who will likely stretch out as a starter in Spring Training but “probably start the year in the bullpen” barring spring injuries. “And then at the end of the regular season, when you look up, he’ll have somewhere between 10 and 20 starts. And you’ll say: ‘Wow, Mike Montgomery was really valuable this year,'” said Epstein. As for splurging on the free-agent market, Epstein was non-committal when discussing a pursuit of Yu Darvish or a reunion with Jake Arrieta. “…I wouldn’t rule it out completely, and I wouldn’t rule it in,” said Epstein of pursuing a high-priced free-agent pitcher. “I would just say it’s not our preferred method.” So they're going to need two starters from somewhere, and "it's not their preferred method" to go after Darvish or Arrieta. Darn, I was hoping they'd sign a long-term, high-priced deal to one of the 32-year-olds. I can't see them having enough trade chips (that they're willing to trade away) to land someone like Archer. If they end up getting two middle-of-the-rotation guys, they will (on paper) be less talented next year than they were this year, especially if they don't re-sign Davis or if they have to trade away Happ or Baez to get one of the starters.

The luxury tax level is $197M in 2018, so probably around $200M in 2019 when Harper will be a free agent. That would put the high level teams will really try to stay under at around $240M (where they get an additional 42.5% penalty and drop 10 draft spots). I look at that level almost like a hard salary cap, as few teams are going to want to pay that price. If they're willing to go up to the $240M level, they might be able to do it. Their problem will be that they will have almost no pre-arby guys. If you are trying to fill 13 spots for $15-20M, you really need a lot of pre-arby guys. Even at $55M (going up to the $240M level) it isn't easy to pay 13 guys with no pre-arby guys, as that's an average of around $4.2M a person, and even players in arby can make more than that. That's the good thing about the Cubs having traded away all of their farm in order to hold off the Brewers this year. Having to fill out your roster with guys you can afford off the scrap heap offsets the benefit of having some expensive stars on your roster. That was my biggest gripe with how Melvin ran payroll.

They also recently added surcharges of an additional 12% for teams that spend $20-40M over the base level, and 42.5%-45% for teams who spend $40M over the base level. Additionally, beginning in 2018, teams who spend $40M over the base level will have their Rule 4 (first year player) draft spot dropped ten places, with the exception of the top six selections, who would have their 2nd pick dropped ten spots. Therefore, a team who spends over $237M next year will pay 65% - 95% "tax" and have their 1st round draft pick dropped ten spots. This should effectively make a salary cap for baseball, as no team is going to repeatedly have their first rounder dropped ten spots. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2016/11/30/breaking-down-mlbs-new-2017-21-collective-bargaining-agreement/#65c626ef11b9

The Brewers need to deal Keon before the beginning of next season. His value is probably peaking as I don't ever see him increasing his average or cutting down on his Ks. He is what he is... a .220-.240 hitting, 20 HR, 25 SB, 175-200 K hitter who plays average to above average CF. With Braun aging, and possibly willing to go to 1B, he will require days off in LF. Platooning Phillips and Brinson in CF, with one starting in LF when Braun needs a day or is at 1B, will certainly ensure both Brinson and Phillips receive 400+ PAs and not linger on the bench for a week at a time. In the rest of my post, I did say we were probably going to trade an OF, with Broxton being the most likely to be traded. We're not all the way there yet, but Stearns is getting us into the enviable position of having a talented MLB team with a lot of talented prospects forcing their way onto the MLB roster. In most instances, I hope that we opt to trade away the vet for a big return, opening a space for the talented prospect to play while adding a lot more talented players to the franchise. Since I look at Braun as untradable, that would mean trading Broxton for the biggest return we can get and opening up a spot for the younger, more talented guys. I just wouldn't close my eyes to the possibility of using Brinson as the headliner that would bring back a young, talented starter with a lot of team control. There are a lot of possibilities, so I trust Stearns to work his magic.

I agree that they will spend to remain competitive for the next few years while they have guys like Rizzo and Bryant, but I don't think they'll have $50M available per year. I think they'll add substantially this offseason, getting them to the $170-180M area they've been in for the past couple of seasons. That will give them some room under the luxury tax for pay increases for a few seasons, but not much else unless they can somehow get themselves out from under a big contract. If they spend big this offseason, and if they don't want to go over the luxury tax threshold, they probably won't have too much to spend next offseason. The only contracts falling off the books after next season will be Rondon and Wilson (estimated around $10.5M combined), and Heyward will make $8M less ($28M in 2018, $20M in 2019). Arby increases should eat that up. They could opt out on Quintana, but that wouldn't make sense.The guys they're talking about trading (Schwarber, Baez, Almora, Happ) are their cheap guys so that will just make the team more expensive. Of course, they could decide to go over the luxury tax threshold, but the penalties for that got a lot bigger recently, which is why teams are trying so hard to get under the cap. Their biggest decision will be how they are going to approach all the free agents they'll lose after 2021, which will be Bryant, Lester, Rizzo and Russell's last year of control (and on a lesser scale, Baez, Montgomery and Schwarber). I think they'll have to keep that in mind when signing people over the next few seasons, as they are not going to want to let someone else outbid them for Bryant, but they can't just give him a monster deal and not have anyone around him. That really looks like the problem year for the Cubs, but that's still three seasons away. Will they load up well over the luxury tax in the next couple of years knowing they will fall below the cap in 2022, or will they try to save enough room to sign both Bryant and Rizzo, knowing they'll lose a lot of the talent around them at that time. It does make me glad that they traded away all the prospects who could be in their pre-arby years at that time. Either way, it's hard to predict that far into the future as a lot could happen. It will be interesting to see how both the Brewers and the Cubs attack this offseason.

We would be stupid to waste service time on Phillips and/or Brinson as part time outfielders. Yeah, the 5th OF doesn't generally get much playing time. If we decide to go with five OF next year (as opposed to using guys like Perez and Thames as the fifth OF), then I'd be fine if that spot went to someone like Wren or even Berry as a pinch runner/defensive replacement. I wouldn't mind if one of those guys went a week between PAs, but I wouldn't want to see that happen to guys like Phillips and Brinson. We will probably use one of our OF as the headliner in a trade that brings back pitching. Broxton is probably the most likely to be traded, but with the way Phillips played at the end of the year I could see Stearns trading Brinson if it brought back a good, young starting pitcher with a lot of team control. That said, JosephC is correct in that we do not have to trade an outfielder. We could put Brinson in AAA to start the year and call him up when someone (I'm looking at you Braun) gets injured. Starting the year with Braun, Phillips/Broxton, Santana in the OF and Brinson at AAA wouldn't be a terrible thing. I'm assuming here that Brinson still has options. He's pretty young, so I think he does.

14 or so months ago, the Cubs were on their way to a 100-win season with probably a Top 5 farm system, looking like they could dominate baseball for a decade. Now they have some big holes, their core is getting more expensive leading to a decision on whether they'll want to go over the luxury tax in a couple of seasons, and they have probably a bottom 5 farm system. I care about this insomuch as how it effects the Brewers. In 2016, the Brewers were not in the discussion, so it didn't matter how good the Cubs were. This season, the Brewers surprised people, and the Cubs overpaid for help at least partly because they needed to keep ahead of the Brewers. This makes the tough job of keeping up with them in the coming years a little easier. This offseason, the Brewers are going to increase their payroll, presumably filling in some of their holes in hopes of being a better team in 2018. Meanwhile, the Cubs will have to spend a lot of money, and probably trade away some of their MLB talent just to have five guys to put in their rotation next year. Even if they trade a MLB guy, I don't know if they have enough prospects to land someone like Archer. I think they're going to have to spend $20-25M a year to get Arrieta or Darvish. The MLB guy they'd trade would probably be to bring back a lesser talent so they don't have to start Montgomery. That would certainly make them the favorites to win the division in 2018, but it will likely mean that in a couple of years they will have a couple of old, high priced guys in their rotation that could really hurt them. The Brewers can't build like the Cubs because they don't have the money. But they do have a lot of budget room in their current payroll, so they can start to improve through free agency, and they have a strong farm. They can afford to trade away some prospects for MLB help, as they have the luxury of having so many prospects that they are going to start losing talented players to Rule 5 before too long. The key will be in figuring out which prospects they need to hold onto to keep a steady stream of talent pouring onto the MLB roster annually. The rest of the guys can be used in trade. With some moves this offseason, the Brewers could be a better team in 2018 than they were in 2017, while if the Cubs don't find a way to replace Arrieta, Lackey, and Davis, they will not be as good in 2018 as they were in 2017. The moves the Cubs have made over the past 1.5 years have helped win them to win a World Series and to hold off the Brewers for a division title this year. They have also made it more of a possibility that the Brewers will be able to win some division titles in the coming years. As a Brewer fan, that's what I care about.

Just because someone is under control to X date, doesn't mean a team couldn't look to cost control those arbitration years and maybe buy 1 or 2 of the initial Free Agency years. From the player perspective it guarantees the income even if they suffer a career-ending injury or their production falls off the cliff. Once the money is spent in one place, those same dollars can't be spent on another player.. Bryant chose Boras as his agent. Players who do that generally want maximum dollars, so they don't sign extensions. They go year-to-year and then sell their services to the highest bidder when they hit free agency. The Cubs will have to figure this into their future plans, because Cub fans would go ballistic if they lost him to free agency.

The Cubs don't really have any prospects left to spend, so they'll pretty much need to spend money for any upgrade (although they could trade Schwarber to an AL team, but his stock is down). I'd guess that the Cubs will end up signing one of the 31-year-old starters Yu Darvish or Jake Arrieta somewhere in the 4-5 year / $100-$125M range. They will need to go big to either re-sign or replace Arrieta, and that will cost them more than they paid for his services this year. I think they traded for Wilson to replace Davis when he's gone next year, but he pitched pretty poorly for the Cubs, so they will probably spend to get a new closer. Unless they re-sign Davis, who just turned 32 and will demand a big contract, they are not going to find his production on the free agent market. Unless they decide to let Montgomery start, they will also need to look for a replacement for Lackey, probably from that same group the Brewers will be looking at: Lynn, Cobb, and Cashner. They'll probably let Almora and Happ cover CF. Jay may not seem like much of a loss, but I think they will miss that .375 OBP. Doing these three things will put them right back around that $170-180M payroll they've been at the past few years, but will obligate them to some more big contracts they'll have to pay as their arby guys get more expensive over the next few years. And, these big contracts will be to guys on the wrong side of 30, which have the potential to end badly. If they don't do these three things, they will take a big step back from 2017 to 2018 as they're not finding replacements for Arrieta, Davis or Lackey from their farm.

I've been thinking about doing this anyhow, so this is as good of place as any. Here is how the Cubs' payroll looks right now for 2018, using MLBtraderumors' projected arby increases (guys like Russelll, Hendricks and Bryant all hit arby in 2018). Under contract: RF Heyward $28,166,667 contract runs through 2023 LHP Lester $27,500,000 contract runs through 2021 Util Zobrist $16,500,000 contract runs through 2019 LHP Quintana $8,850,000 contract runs through 2018 with a 2019 option 1B Rizzo $7,285,714 contract runs through 2019 with options for 2020 and 2021 RHP Strop $5,850,000 contract runs through 2018 with 2019 option Total under conract: six players, $94,152,381 (for sake of reference, the highest opening day Brewer roster was 2015 at $104,237,000) Projected arbitration salaries: LHP Justin Wilson (5.035) – $4.3MM RHP Hector Rondon (5.000) – $6.2MM RHP Justin Grimm (4.162) – $2.4MM CF Leonys Martin (4.161) – $4.9MM RHP Kyle Hendricks (3.081) – $4.9MM Util Tommy La Stella (3.072) – $1.0MM 3B Kris Bryant (2.171) – $8.9MM SS Addison Russell (2.167) – $2.3MM Projected arby: eight players, $34,900,000 Potential pre-arby guys: 2B Javier Baez (arby starts 2019) LHP Mike Montgomery (arby starts 2019) OF Kyle Schwarber (2019) RHP Carl Edwards (2019) C Wilson Contreras (2020) CF Albert Almora (2020) RHP Eddie Butler (2019) OF Ian Happ (2021?) eight players, $4,400,000 If all of these guys made the roster, that would give them 22 players, $133,452,381 They are losing Jake Arrieta, John Lackey, Wade Davis, Jon Jay, Alex Avila, Brian Duensing, Rene Rivera, and Koji Uehara to free agency. The first four of these guys played very important roles this year, and will be hard to replace. The 2018 luxury tax level is $197,000,000 and they could afford to pay that, giving them plenty of money to spend this offseason. It's 2019 that things could start to get interesting if they sign some big contracts this offseason (which they surely will). Bryant is also a Boras client and has four years of arby eligibility. He will get very expensive soon, and with no help coming from the farm, they won't have many league minimum salaries to offset the big-money players in the coming years. They showed vulnerability this season and will need to spend big money on pitching to try stay on top in 2018. I don't expect them to completely crash & burn, but I think they turned what could have been a decade-long dynasty into a much shorter window of potential success.

Assuming of course, that Brinson is the hitter we all hope he is... That can be said of just about any player in the game. There are very few sure things. At some point, you just have to take the chance on a guy who is expected to be a very good baseball player. The "problem," which is a good problem to have, is that we have a lot of MLB ready outfielders. Stearns just has to decide the best move for the franchise from a lot of possible options. It will likely involve trading someone.

That's why it's nice that we have a strong farm. Ideally, as guys get into their arby years we will have replacements ready who will allow us to trade the more expensive players. Of course this won't happen in every situation, but if you make a general habit of trading away guys who have 1-2 years of team control remaining and replacing them with guys from the farm, you will continue to bring young talent into the system (through the trades) while keeping the payroll low enough with the pre-arby guys that you can afford to have multiple high-salary guys on the roster. Doing this, you get 4-5 years of the player, while also giving yourself time to grow a replacement on the farm. Signing good pre-arby guys to extensions just helps out in this, as it allows for the team to have more years of cost-controlled control before you eventually make the trade. The first step of stocking the system with talent at every level is the most difficult for fans to sit through. Hopefully that stage took a lot less time than we all thought it would and we're moving on to the next phase.

Yeah......no. Curios why anybody would ever think the Brewers would have as much money to spend as anyone since there is no salary cap and the Brewers will always be a small market. I'm not looking at total payroll, just "free cash" or "room under the budget" available for 2018 payroll. I don't think they'll max out, but if they did the Brewers could probably spend somewhere around $50M this offseason. That's probably more than any other team would add. Long term, we can't touch the money bigger markets can spend, but we have a lot of room in the budget to add money in the short term. For signing someone like Swarzak for a 1-2 year deal, we could spend as much as anyone would spend on him. We will never be a big spender, but from 2008 until the start of the rebuild, we were generally in the middle of the pack for payroll (#15, 15, 13, 16, 14, 18, 15). We're now sitting with a very low payroll, and going from the bottom back to the middle means we have money to spend. With a lot of pre-arby guys on the roster and future pre-arby guys sitting in the minors, we will add some bigger salaries (through extensions, free agency or trade) in the near future.